How did I get here & Where am I going?

As far as current relationships go, things seem pretty stable between my wife and her gf. I still have no issues of note with my metamore, or anyone on that side of the tribe.

At the moment I’m travelling again...in the boonies outside Toronto right now...and after a short reunion at home, I’ll be gone again to somewhere that brings to mind images of gold panners and dog sleds. They aren’t long trips but it makes for interesting date nights with my wife. We get to talk, and reconnect, and make plans, and fight, and enjoy the local brews. Yeah, don’t get hung up on the fighting part, it’s just part of the routine when I travel it seems.

The knockdown, drag out conversation we had the other week was an eye opener though, as I got a good blast of exactly what she thinks of the moral quality of my chosen occupation, and I think she caught a peak of my own attitudes about it that I don’t think she liked very much. It’s something I generally keep very well hidden from her, and others, as it’s not something well understood...even by some of those in the same line of work. And definitely not by the people around us, poly or not.

I generally don’t figure that there’s much of anything I need that I don’t get from my wife already, but the conversation brought to light something that I think I want; to be understood, specifically in relation to my chosen occupation, and the moral code that goes with it. I would like to know someone who can understand why I believe my path to be honourable; why I would have followed my grandfather and great grandfather into it.
Bless my wife for trying, and I know she does try, and I think she carries some amount of pride for what I do. But she doesn’t get it, and she never will. Her heart is full of compassion, and care, and love, and frankly, I don’t want her to get it, as it’d get in the way of who she is, and why I love her.

It was probably my fault anyways for trying to defend myself instead of just taking it. I generally spend enough time biting my tongue around town anyways, it’s amazing I still have a physical ability to talk. But sometimes the inclination to justify myself becomes overwhelming, and as much as that might cause tears and heartache sometimes, at least my wife is understanding enough to still love me after. So one of these days, I think it’d be nice to be able to share my thoughts on it, and be understood...I don’t even know if such a creature exists...I expect unicorns would be easier to find in my town.
(PS: To my wife...DO NOT TRY TO FIX THIS…it’s not yours!)


It’s possible that some of this episode came from a more general disconnect that we’ve had lately. We had an awesome vacation for a couple weeks with lots of time together, and I think we hit the post-vacation crash at about the same time...falling right back into pre-vacation routines, which includes a lot of time at home alone time for me with my wife being away lots doing extra-curricular stuff. So I’m thinking it might be that I’ve been struggling with what to do about it...since asking her to stay home more isn’t an option. (Not that she wouldn’t, but because I don’t want her to feel she should) And then things go into a tailspin. I’ll look around at maybe writing to someone on OKC...this is not a short process for me. It takes a long time to figure out what to try and say, fully knowing that it’s unlikely to be acknowledged, never mind actually responded to. Yet browsing profiles or messaging is something I feel I shouldn’t be doing when my wife’s around, and often because I occasionally get slammed for making her feel like I’m looking to upgrade.

No, I’m just looking for something to do! I’m generally sculling about with the computer anyways, so after crackbook and spam patrol on the forum, messaging people is the next best time waster, so it’s either that or Minecrack! But here’s the thing, the “search” for anyone there is half-assed too. What am I supposed to tell them in the opening message? “Hey, how are you? I wanna date you a few days a week because my wife is out and I’m bored!” Yeah, good reason to date someone...don’tcha think?! We can add it premptively to the Stupid Messages That A-holes Send To People On OKC thread.

I’ll get this one sorted out eventually, probably with a non-poly response, like having a friend or two over occasionally for beer, or taking some guitar lessons or something like that. It’s just that I take a while to get around to it.
(PS...To my darling wife: DO NOT TRY TO FIX THIS EITHER! My job, not yours.)


When I get back, there will still be a lot of work to do. We’ve become comfortable enough with poly I think that we’re growing weary of being closeted from the parents. So, since we’re going to be outed one day anyways, we are thinking of choosing our own time and place to come out to them. So chances are we’ll be doing so within a couple weeks, with my parents as a test run. But that’s another story...


Keep Calm and Poly On!
 
Polycamp Too & Polycamp NW

The summer has been pretty active in terms of spending time with the poly community. I attended both the All Ages Polycamp on Vancouver Island, and we made the trek again this year to Polycamp NW. I should have blogged about it earlier while the revelations and all was fresh in my mind. I had a great time at both events, with lots of coffee discussions about ethics at the first, and heard a story that illustrated explicitly what an ethical poly breakup should look like. Both had lots of cool poly folk at them, including my wife and the poly tribe, and beautiful nature type backdrops to stage the whole affair.

The tricky part about hanging around with awesome people, is that I realize that I’m not. And while I’d like the idea of hitting 40 going awesome, I’m not sure if it’d actually work. After all, if I’m not awesome, but try to be awesome, am I then not being authentically myself?

Anyways, if I can remember what the whole point was, I’ll try to post it before I forget again.
 
Find another seat!

In other news, I think I done a good thing last week. I’ve found that there’s a lot of material firing across my crackbook feed lately, from decent poly folks in other places, with various axes to grind. To some extent I find the constant assault on old values, and possibly things which I grew up with to be a little tedious. But then I was also never a fan of Political Correctness...not ever. I generally figured that as soon as we change the terminology, the baggage just get’s dumped on the new flavour of the week...I was never convinced that it would change the underlying issues. But then, as I think I mentioned at the early part of this blog, I’ve never been a fan of bandaid solutions for injuries that cut deep to the core.

Regardless, I have seen plenty of stuff about rape culture, slut shaming, and a dozen other little causes or social quirks stemming from our patriarchal society which have not been addressed yet...or at least have a long way to go. I find the extreme almost rabid emotion that is put into these kinds of posts to be very wearing, especially as I’m just scrolling down to see what Joe had for dinner last night, or if my wife has posted a new funny bumper sticker or something. In the middle of this are all these doom-and-gloom- how-horrible-our-society-is-to-[insert marg******** group here]-because-they-like-sex-or-whatever posts.

Now don’t get me wrong...I’m not against what they’re saying, I’m just not personally over excited about it. Mostly because I have a bit of a glimpse into how bad things are in other parts of the world, and how far things have come in my country in terms of personal liberty...and how much of it we’ve still held on to. We still have forward momentum, and in many respects are light years ahead of most other places around the globe. So I don’t see it as a world shattering affront to the human condition that a small minority of people with the wealth and luxury of thousands are still missing one or two little things. I mean really...we have women’s vote, and gay marriage, and a bunch of other stuff...what else do they want? They want it all, and they want it all NOW! <sigh> and that’s when I usually do a personal facepalm and carry on, saying nothing. They are passionate, and driven to make the world a better place, and if we have forward momentum, it’s because people like that are excited enough to keep the inertia...and at the end of the day I love them for it.

And apparently, it’s working.

So the last couple weeks I went out to Toronto-ish to take a course for work. Some of the other students and I got along great, staying up to the wee hours every day in a lounge down the hall from my room, chatting, drinking, and generally carrying on like fools. It got to be a very close knit group.

On the last such night, the party included a bunch of other people as well, who hadn’t been around to bond as much as the rest of us. One of our gals, I’ll dub her Xena was sitting on a loveseat sized couch in the middle of the room. There was only about half a dozen of us left. This Xena was a lovely women, extremely intelligent and educated, and about knee high to a grasshopper...she was adored by others in the class, and very well respected. And so while she’s sitting there, some dude, later dubbed by the other girl in the room as Greasy Guy. GGuy is fairly young, visibly intoxicated, and plops himself down on the couch beside Xena to engage her in conversation. Not on the other end of the loveseat, right in the middle. Xena was very easy to talk to in general, so she had no trouble with talking, but then he got close. Really close. His arm went over the back of the couch, and he scotched up beside her, and leaned over so far as to hover overtop of her.

I thought she didn’t look very comfortable, especially as she kept pulling away until she was practically pinned against the arm of the couch. I was getting uncomfortable even, even before she caught my eye with that look that said “Help”. I pointed at another seat and indicated that there was some single seats free where GGuy couldn’t get so close. And that’s when the previous bludgeoning of FB posts about Rape Culture, etc. came back and slapped me roundly across the back of my head. Her moving to a single seat would have been an easy way to diffuse the situation...but why should SHE have to move?

She shook off the suggestion and instead told GGuy directly that he was in her space, and said she wanted him to back away. I gave it a few seconds, but it wasn’t hard to tell that buddy wasn’t going to move back yet. So that’s when I started to yell at him. Ok, the kids call it yelling, I call it speaking loudly enough to get some drunk imbeciles’ attention, and I told HIM to go get a different seat.

If looks could kill, I’d have been toast, but at least he had sat straight up to stare me down so Xena had room to breathe. So, GGuy is giving me the look of death, drunk, and probably looking for a fight, and all I can think is “WTF, Why am I having to get involved in this? Why does it take a male yelling at this douche to back off, instead of just listening to the lady?”

Xena jumped in again to deescalate the situation, and spent the better part of the next hour or two trying to explain things to GGuy. Even going so far as to come over and sit close to me to demonstrate how she felt safe with me (huge compliment in my mind), but not necessarily with a new acquaintance. Eventually everyone got back to their rooms safe and sound for the night, although I had to stay till the bitter end as I would be damned if I was going to leave Xena and GGuy alone together in the room after that display. Good thing I don’t believe in sleep.

These situations don’t come up very often in my life. But they do happen sometimes. Indeed various conventions in the fandom world have been a buzz with similar types of harassing behaviour over the last year or so. For all the tediousness and annoyance, or general Meh I might greet a given post about the evils of my gender, it’s apparently sinking in, because in the middle the scenario, all I could think was “This shouldn’t even be happening. I shouldn’t need to tell him this. He should be listening to her, so I don’t need to speak. She shouldn’t need to speak, he should KNOW to respect her distance until invited in...or FFS ask for consent to sit so close…before you move!”

However, the story also illustrates another thing...in that in situations like that, there’s no neutral, no bystander. We’re given the choice to do nothing and watch, and become complicit accessories to such harassment; or we can choose to stand up and let people know that their behaviour is not acceptable in the community, in the room, or wherever. We can all sit around after the fact philosophizing to our hearts contact that we shouldn’t HAVE to say anything. But that only matters if you take the action to keep the people around you safe to begin with! It’s YOUR RESPONSIBILTY to ACT!

And with that thought...I should probably go ban a troll that’s been making people around here feel unsafe...
 
Fear and Speculation, Life outside the closet??

As previously mentioned, my wife and I are thinking about coming out of the closet...at least a little. There’s a lot of apprehension, and uncertainty of course, but I’m optimistic that it will be better than living indefinitely under the Sword of Damocles.


Now, we’re not actually that closeted really. I don’t advertise that I’m poly at work, but I don’t keep it overly secret either. I just figure that sort of thing doesn’t really fall into the realm of any of their damn business. With friends, we are quite open, especially amoung my long term friends at home whom were the first to be told as they’ve known about poly as long as I did. Newer friends where we live now, have probably not known us as anything else. The only ones where our explorations into non-monogamy and poly was kept guarded was with family...and my in-laws in particular.



This idea of keeping information from the family came up in conversations about people coming out to family at Polycamp NW I think. In some cases, it seemed the worst part of the reaction of family members to learning about poly was they were hurt about the secrecy, the lack of trust. I can understand that. But it doesn’t make it particularly more convincing to risk the general inter-familial peace and harmony that exists in ignorance of our love lives.

The largest fear has to do with my brother-in-law, who is an ordained minister for a fairly conservative branch of the Christian churches. It’s generally figured that someone that saved himself for marriage is probably going to have a hard time reconciling non-monogamy in a family member without fire and brimstone kinds of judgement.

My wife has concerns about her parents as well, but I figure they’ll get over it eventually. I really don’t know who has the more accurate view on that one. She’s lived with them all her life, but I’m not so close as to loose my perspective...and I don’t see their treatment of others as being particularly un-accepting.



As for my family, my parents have mostly been kept in the dark because if they knew, it might get back across to her parents. They do talk occasionally. In terms of their acceptance however, it is still a bit of a crapshoot. Isn’t everything? But I know my mother had similar conversations with her parents at one point...so I figure as long as she keeps that in mind, they won’t go ballistic or anything. She was also the one who taught be that even if a girl has a ring on her finger, she’s still fair game! (Only the 2nd ring made them off limits). So the idea that the right people are still fair game with rings or not, shouldn’t be too far of a stretch. Overall, I do have faith that my parents may be confused initially, and worried a little but maybe, but overall will be ok with our choices...or at least our right to make them.



Spending a lot of time around the poly community, and especially with the kids around, we’ve generally figured that if anyone is going to out us, it’ll be them.

We never wanted to keep secrets from the kids, lest they get the impressions we were lying to them, so we don’t hide poly from them. We talk about it openly as we read the forum, host events, discuss relationships. The kids will hear it all. We haven’t explained anything to them about the specifics, but they haven’t asked. They know we have sleepovers, and that people stay at our place, but that’s not exclusive behaviour for our lovers...as plenty of non-lover friends have been welcome to couch surf at our place. But when they’re old enough to ask the questions, then they’ll also be old enough to hear the answers.

We also don’t want the kids to keep secrets. We’ve made honesty very important to them, so there’s no way we can compromise that by turning around and asking them to lie to others on our behalf. We’ve had friends do that to us, make us compromise our integrity to keep their secrets which we never asked for...and it sucks balls, even as a fully grown adult type person. There’s no way on this Earth green or otherwise, that we’d drop that kind of load of $#&* on our kids.

So my wife and I are pretty much authors of our own destruction aka. outing. We’ve made our poly lives very visible to the kids and given them free access to the knowledge, and we’ve imposed no restrictions about them hiding it from anyone, including their grandparents. Under such conditions, it’s not a matter of “Will” the kids out us...it’s a matter of “When”.



I’m looking at coming out as one of those things like having kids, there’s no “Good” time, just less horrible or inconvenient times. Rather than having to be eternally prepared to react and defend for a time which may come at any time...I believe this is one of those best defence is a good offence situations. So rather than waiting, we’ll deliver the news to the family at a time of our choosing, instead of it being up to the luck of the kids.

Having to monitor language around the parents is frankly exhausting. Since I have such great faith in my parents, it’s been decided between my wife and I that we’ll use them as the test case, and see how it turns out before tackling her family. My mother is on FB, so she sees a lot of stuff come across our wall, and I suspect she already has questions. So I’ll be happy to let her in on the full picture so she can stop guessing. She’s already very keen on my Meta’s BF. She sees his posts on my wall, or my wife’s, and has gotten to be a great fan, even without having met him really. Perhaps she’ll be happy to finally have an excuse to friend him! Cross fingers...


As for the time...not this weekend. Apparently Oct 11 is National Coming Out Day...so perhaps that will give the chance to soften up the news with some well placed generic wall posts or something, and we’ll actually drop the bomb when I get back...

Wish us luck...or Lube maybe?!!!
 
As previously mentioned, my wife and I are thinking about coming out of the closet...at least a little. There’s a lot of apprehension, and uncertainty of course, but I’m optimistic that it will be better than living indefinitely under the Sword of Damocles.

Well...that took long enough didn't it?!

Too late in the evening to go into details...but at least we're still here, and I still have parents that love me and my wife. I'll try to get back and expand soon.

It's been a good weekend.
 
On Coming out, and the face of true integrity

I suppose an update is long overdue. And I don't have time to go into all of it. A lot of things from previous posts have been overtaken by events, but I'll try to rewind to the relevant sections as the current mess is still unfolding, so it'd be premature to start in on that.... if there's anything I'd not want to be...premature would be on the short list... ;)

Anyways, my coming out story with my parents. I've been starting to borrow some things from FreeTime lately... to some extent just saying "F* it", damn the torpedo's, and full speed ahead. I think coming out to my parents was kind of the first tepid testing of that philosophy in recent times.

I think I gave most of the background in a previous post...so I will try not to repeat such drivel. Suffice to say that it took a while to schedule the event...far longer than I originally anticipated. But the opportunity finally came up to go up to their town for another Poly discussion night, so it seemed like a good time to break the news to them. My wife was somewhat hesitant about the whole thing (read: terrified) so I ended up leaving her in the care of a local friend, and then she was collected and taken to the poly meet by some other friends from the community back home. Times like this really enforce in me the importance of good friends, and the appreciation I have for the Poly community to bond together when required...and awesome contrast to the division and in-fighting that I've begun to notice is occurring a little too frequently.

Anyways, with her safely stowed out of harms way, I showed up at my parents door only semi-announced, and after some usual pleasantries, I sat them down for a discussion the likes of which none of us had bothered with I think since I was a teen...and generally in trouble. :D

We usually say there's no script for coming out...but I'm not sure that's true. You'd think after a couple decades of the LGBT crowd getting on with these things, someone should have written it down by now. It seems maybe I just didn't bother printing out a copy, so I was still on my own. I opened with my concerns that I had something to tell them that I was worried they wouldn't like. And also passed on the even more severe concerns of my wife (somewhat necessary in order to explain why I was there and she wasn't)

And then came the part of damn the torpedoes and just blurt out the crux of the matter.

The rest...I'm not sure is really that noteworthy...but here's a couple observations:

1. Apparently we were keeping the secret better than we thought. I always took my mother for a very perceptive individual (Dad too, but he doesn't kick around our friends quite as often). Apparently she had no idea any such thing was going on.

2. My parents can still surprise me. Oddly enough, I somewhat expected my Dad to be slightly more perturbed at the prospect. So I was a little surprised that it was my Mom that started crying...about the "death" of my marriage, that apparently had been not what she thought for a good several years. It seemed she was holding on to a value set that they had both taken great pains to teach to my brother and I by living the example. And I think she was a little disappointed that either it didn't work, or at least I had chosen to ignore it. My Dad surprised me by clutching into the news a little faster than I expected. As my Mom was lamenting that my marriage was dead (as she knew it), my Dad actually corrected her pointing out that it wasn't dead, it had simply changed.

3. We got a few questions or discussion circles that we did expect. "what about the kids? How will they know what's Right?" I was expecting the kids part, but was a little taken aback with the teaching them what's right part. I think most of that though is simply a generational shift between what they thought was right in marriage (Man & woman, mono, for life) and what we think is right (People who Love each other...for as long as they can stand each other). There were some similar things, mostly to do with my wife's bi-sexuality that I have since had to giggle. No, she's not bi because of her favorite sport...if anything, she plays her sport because she's not straight. :p

I very much respect and admire my parents, and it's a large part of why I really didn't feel right lying to them any longer. And they did not disappoint me at all. They've spent their lives raising my brother and I by setting the example that they wanted us to learn and emulate. This episode in our lives has shown us that I learned their lessons well, even if it was a different interpretation of the text that I picked up on. Like being open minded enough to accept other people's ways, even if they aren't my own. Marriage being about love, even if I since have read gender out of the equation. Like the only universal constant is change, and that the only people we can control is ourselves. And while my parents may not agree with the choices I make, they continue to set the example, by demonstrating that they can have an opinion about it, but they can't control it. They have held true to the ideals they taught me, with all the honesty and integrity that I could have expected from anyone.

One thing I've told my parents in the past is that I think I have some pretty big shoes to fill, and that became really significant to me when I had kids. Sometime since, my Mom asked me what I would do if one of my kids came out somewhere down the line. I don't think I paid it too much mind at the time, since have trouble imagining a case that our kids would feel a need to keep closeted from us. However their reaction to this news from their son about poly, and subsequent actions have confirmed it for me. My parents are remarkable and upstanding individuals, who leave me with a high bar to try and live up too.
 
That's an awesome story of love and respect! I'm sure your wife is relieved too.

"Your marriage is dead!" kinda made me chuckle. Like it's a person. I'm divorced, but I never thought that phrase to myself.

I never had to come out to my parents. My mom died before my ex-h and i broke up, and my dad lives 1000 miles away and never gives a crap what anyone does as long as it doesn't impact his comfort. :p
 
So as usual I'm way behind on current events in my life. As usual there's been far more changes around me than I've taken the time to talk about. But now is not the time.

Right now I'm taking my wife out on a date. It's a far more classy affair than either of us technically deserve. But the booze is flowing freely on an elegant estate where she and I are surrounded by delectable luxurious food and service, fine libations, and beautiful people in a variety of fine evening wear.

As much as I may struggle with some aspects of the changes to my wife's love life of late...a night like tonight leaves me content that I have no fear of competition by prospective metamours when it comes to showing a lady a lovely evening of class elegance and love.
 
Into the crucible…Pt1/3

****SPOILER WARNING****

TO: MY WIFE's RECENT EX-GF,
Reading this will contain stuff you can't unlearn!

Don't read if you don't want to know!!!! STOP NOW, GO BACK, DO NOT COLLECT $200

Don't whine to me later if you proceed anyways!

You have been warned!










****SPOILER WARNING****





So, I came out to my parents a couple weeks ago, and one of the things that concerned them was the idea that we were playing with fire...and the inherent instability they see in this kind of lifestyle. I did my best to be reassuring, although my own dating life is mostly stable due to lack of activity, and my wife was humming along at the time with a relationship of a few years.


And then it all exploded.



I’ll mostly gloss over my own search for other relationships, as it’s not overly notable in and of itself. It’s been running its typical glacial pace, where I know plenty of poly people, some of them quite cool, but anyone close I know is not compatible, or not interested. There were a couple lately that seemed to be positive enough to allow me to dare to hope…and cut contact just as suddenly. And in particular friend that briefly seemed to want to try for something more (which was originally supposed to be a whole other blog about communication since her and my ideas of a dating anniversary would have been off by a couple months if we had ever reached any) and then suddenly I got the ever familiar “You’re not pretty enough” speech TM. (The actual words used are usually something to the effect of “I’m not attracted to you” or “I don’t have those kinds of feelings for you”, etc.)


It’s not an unfamiliar phenomenon for me, and I’m trying not to dwell on it like I did in my teens. After all, it’s not something I have any control over...I can’t “fix” the fact that I don’t turn a particular persons crank. Chemistry is a funny thing, and doesn’t really allow for one sided reactions. And it’s something I suffer from too, I’ve been told there are some people who’d be interested in me (they never talk to me about this, so I usually figure it’s just my wife starting rumours to make me feel better) but it’s the flip side where I’m not that interested in them.

The funny part was that I then got the speech a second time within a week from another friend. I’d decided a while ago that gf or not, I should probably be nurturing my local friendships a bit more than I have been. So I’d been asking this one friend out for beer a couple times, something a couple years overdue, but it was a change to our former routine of just meeting up at community events. She was thankfully very direct about it, and I almost cut her off in the middle of the intro sentence to tell her it was ok. She is after all an attractive woman, and having known her as long as I had, I know she’s exactly the kind awesome I’d date given half the chance. Of course knowing her as long as I have, I also know she’s way too busy to have time for what I’d need, and given her preferences, I never figured I’d be the sort she’d ever be able to take seriously anyways.

Of course being used to the speech and liking to hear it are also two different things. To some extent rejection is still rejection and no matter how many times I have to take a bite of that particular shit sandwich, I still want to take a moment to get some mouth rinse afterwards. I didn’t really have that chance this time around...



In the midst of all my own shenanigans, my wife started developing feelings for someone else. The full story of that is her own tale to tell, but there are aspects which I’ll hash out here anyways since they may be relevant to my own processing of the events, starting with probably the key difference in her previous poly relationships, this one is a guy. Crap...I guess it’s time to test the theory!

Now this guy I actually knew from the community, and he’d been around for a while. Unlike most of the fellows who vie for my wife’s affections in the typical vulgar or desperate “what can I do to get my dick wet” OKC kind of way, my wife had been hanging around with this guy for a while, and the attraction developing wasn’t surprising, and seemed to be developing without intent out of a viable and legitimate friendship...the kind of organic process my wife likes. I don’t think I was actually that surprised about it when she told me. And intellectually, it didn’t take me too long to figure out that this guy might be a good prospect.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned my wife’s distrust about guys in particular previously. Although I thought I had processed the idea of her being with a guy in terms of deleting the patriarchal scripts that society programs us with, I know better than to trust the majority of guys in their intentions. There’s way too many out there just looking for a quick lay, and that’s not what she wants. She deserves better. So it may all be well and good that I decided in my head that I should be ok with her being with another man, but does it really mean anything if neither her nor I seemed to ever seriously consider the possibility that it could ever actually happen? That no guy was *really* likely to both be the exception to the rule of hound-dogs and also have mutual chemistry with her. Yet now, here he is...I guess unicorn hunters can rejoice, because the very existence of this improbity guy will make unicorns seem downright common!


I wish I could say my initial reaction was entirely mellow and smooth, compersion-y, and according to plan. No, it wasn’t. A lot of the scripted programming came back. Previous suitors were never very threatening to me, because they had never passed that acid test of not asking about sex within some fairly short period. And the one guy who had in the last few years, there was no mutual attraction. One suitor who I had even I thought sounded cool, stood her up...thrice! But this guy, I already liked as a friend, and I think that’s where the problem came in. I knew enough about him and other relationships to end up with a weird view about him, and in some ways or aspects he excels better than I do. I could recognize the source of these things as envy, which was simple enough. But it formed in my mind as a possible threat, area’s where he might end up being the “better option” as it were, and the archaic mono-marriage-oriented programming kicked in all over the place.

The fact that this fellow is already married didn’t assuage anything either. That aspect was probably instigated by the number of loveless & sex-less marriages that have been lurking around my periphery lately. We see the stories here, and out in the community, and even with mono friends where spouses stop being intimate with each other, but stay together for a variety of reasons. So lurking in the back of my mind was the question, could this be the BBD that causes my wife to lose interest in me? Is there an off-ramp here to a dead-end sexless marriage that I need to worry about?

So went the conversation with my wife when I finally got that all sorted in my head. It didn’t actually take very long, a day or two maybe. The amount of time I’ve spent in the last few years learning about poly, and reading other peoples stories, etc. lent a great deal to being about to dig out the roots of most of these things fairly quickly. I was able to express my concerns to my wife, and she replied:
YEAH BIATCH! NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FELT when YOU started dating another WOMAN! EAT IT SUCKA!

No, seriously, she never said that.
She was able to give me the reassurances I needed to clear up my anxieties. The conversation was much different this time that it was when I started dating K, and night and day different that it would have been when we started this journey. I think we’ve dispensed with a lot of our old tools, and truly embraced some newer ones. There was never a discussion of veto, or even slowing down (She was already moving well slow enough for her own reasons) and when I looked for reassurance, I wasn’t even looking for promises or guarantees that the nightmare dead-end/BBD scenarios wouldn’t happen. I needed her to acknowledge what my fears were and where they were from, and I needed a commitment to talk to me if symptoms of the BBD scenario started appearing, in advance of getting to a point of no return. She was more than happy to provide, and with that, I was content.

Or was I? There was somewhat a safety valve again. Similar to the wife-dating-guys scenario in the first place. Why worry about something that would never happen? Why would I have asked her to slow down? My Meta would probably do that for me?! In poly of course it wasn’t just going to be about my wife and I...while we’ve let go of needing to approve each other partners, she still had to get permission from her gf. Getting that permission was going to be somewhat tenuous, and probably not quick at coming. So part of me was able to rest easy in the knowledge that I’d have time to process anyways, without having to make the demand for time myself.


Did I mention earlier about an explosion?
 
Into the crucible…Pt2/3

****SPOILER WARNING****

TO: MY WIFE's RECENT EX-GF,
Reading this will contain stuff you can't unlearn!

Don't read if you don't want to know!!!! STOP NOW, GO BACK, DO NOT COLLECT $200

Don't whine to me later if you proceed anyways!

You have been warned!










****SPOILER WARNING****




As life happens, sometimes while there’s no good time for certain things, there are usually less bad times. So my wife had held things close to her chest for a while, trying not to let it happen, making sure it was real, and then that it was real enough and strong enough to warrant taking the risk of some waves that might happen in her life by admitting it to herself or her partners. She had the conversation with me, but her gf’s plans made approaching the topic difficult to address immediately. She opted to wait for a lull, a less bad time, to broach the topic with her. I watched her struggle with the need to address the feelings for this guy as they grew stronger, and having to make sure it was ok with her gf. But she had to be honest, and she had to communicate, her poly demanded it. (as did the previous agreements with her gf)

So she told her gf about these feelings that might be developing for this guy, and she was ready to put things on hold indefinitely for her gf if needed. She was honest, and played in the spirit of their agreements. It was also the first time in their years together that my wife had ever had to bring anything to the table that might make waves. (the gf had moved around a couple partners during the same period)

And then the gf dumped my wife. Suddenly, roundly, completely. That was not...expected. WTF?

Now, it seems that there may be some other stuff going on that precipitated this decision on the part of my now suddenly ex-meta, but it still kinda pissed me off for a few reasons.
  • It was done to my wife, and how she was hurting. Duh!
  • My wife had been honest and acted with nothing but respect to their agreements, but was being punished for it. Grr.
  • Where my ex-meta might have been able to control or slow things down while they were dating, getting dumped not only took all restraints off the new relationship developing, but it probably accelerated it. I felt as if my ex-meta could almost use the new prospect like a sex toy and was intentionally trying to fuck my wife with him! Grab him by the hips and push!
  • At the end of the day, I was the husband, and this was my wife’s first venture with another guy, so if anyone was supposed to be freaking out on this...it was SUPPOSED to be ME damnit! She stole my freak-out, so now I wasn’t allowed.

There may be reasons that the ex-gf might had chosen this path, and there is a lot going on in her life, but that’s her shit to deal with, because I can’t even begin to figure out what’s going on in her head, and once my wife was dumped I pretty much don’t care. Her shit, her story, her deal. It’s no longer mine to deal with, and not up for speculation here; there will be no villianisation for it, or excuses offered. What is fair game here though is the aftermath as it affected me, and my marriage.

So now, not only do I have no time to process, but now I basically had to put away any efforts to process, or doubt, or hesitate, or behave badly because I went into damage control & support mode. My issues are suddenly irrelevant because I have to support my wife through her heart getting torn out and trampled on. And sure enough, the bond with the new guy was strengthened by the events as well. Things were still progressing slowly in getting to a physical level, but the feelings were certainly there. But really now, after witnessing the ex-gf’s behavior, there was no way I could be *that guy* and start slamming on the binders for my own sake. As I said, my opportunity to freak out about anything was swept out from under me, and now I have no choice but to play the dutiful and supportive husband.
 
Into the crucible…Pt3/3

****SPOILER WARNING****

TO: MY WIFE's RECENT EX-GF,
Reading this will contain stuff you can't unlearn!

Don't read if you don't want to know!!!! STOP NOW, GO BACK, DO NOT COLLECT $200

Don't whine to me later if you proceed anyways!

You have been warned!










****SPOILER WARNING****







My wife carried on developing the relationship with the guy, to the point now where they are bf/gf now. I’ve had very little to say, although my wife has been good about checking in frequently with me about how I’m dealing with things. She knows that I’ve still got concerns, but I’ve tried to adopt Freetime’s attitude about it...damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! Deal with the consequences on the other side. I’ve refrained from trying to drag out any control measures like vetoes, or imposed timelines. I’ve not asked for any promises to give the illusion of certainty or security that she may not be able to keep. I haven’t asked her to slow down or stop, and the other day she actually made a comment thanking me for it, which was funny since it was the first time I’d actually considered that it might have been a possibility to do so.

I am a little conflicted though. I’m not entirely comfortable with the future of my wife’s new bf. He’s got a factor in his life that could result in him doing things that will end up hurting my wife if he doesn’t negotiate things very carefully.


I asked to be kept informed of when things were likely to happen, and so it seems we’re finally on the cusp of passing through the crucible. So I find myself again trying to seek compersion and failing. Trying to keep anxiety at bay, and bring unsure of where it’s all coming from.
How many of these will sound familiar to others?

  • I try not to play the competition game. It does nothing positive for self-worth, and my wife is so competitive I wouldn’t be able to help but lose anyways. If she’s now open to other guys, then she may have no issues in the future finding people willing to give her affection. As a guy, the playing field is much different, and having been told twice recently how not-pretty-enough I am, it’s hard not to fall into a vicious cycle that makes it very difficult to be positive about my prospects for dating my own self. (On a side note, there’s an envy vector here as the bf doesn’t seem to have too much trouble getting female attention, from more than just my wife) There’s probably also a time issue here too that I might need to revisit later, in that my wife is already a busy person with a lot of time away from home for hobbies. While her gf once upon a time asked ME to guarantee HER a date night with my wife at least once every 2 weeks, she rarely lived up to her part of the bargain to take my wife away that often! By contrast, my wife had already been spending an increasing amount of time with the bf even beforehand. So perhaps I need to make better efforts to make sure we’re getting our quality time again
  • The usual scripts are supposed to kick in, and perhaps that’s what I’m concerned about? Am I less a man because my wife is seeking comfort in another? (She was doing this before anyways with a woman, so what really has changed?) Am I going to be suddenly not enough, or undesirable at all? More importantly, am I *actually* concerned about this? Or do I just think I should be? When I was about to get married I had a period of doubt which had nothing to do with my own concerns, but the constant echo of friends in my ears telling me about why I should be fearing marriage. Eventually the echoing was loud enough that I had to ask myself if maybe I should be worried about marriage, if others were seeing something I wasn’t. Is this a similar thing where the scripts tell me I should be worried? Am I ignoring legitimate worries just because I think it might be like those old echoes, and I’m trying to tune it out? It’s a paradoxical vortex that has nowhere to go but down.
  • Am I hesitant just because I haven’t had time to process? Should I have tried to slow things down? Am I just playing along as the dutiful husband and a good poly partner because I don’t want to be *that guy* who has a patriarchal double standard or de-facto OPP? Am I intentionally ignoring warning signs or possible issues because it would be too easy to mistake as my own insecurities and I don’t want to seem petty? Is the self-imposed pressure of having to be supportive in the wake of my wife being dumped making me drive towards a higher standard of behavior than I’m actually ready for? If I am being blind to warning signs because I’m trying to behave, what happens when the warning comes true and I’m not ready for it? Or am I simply past the point of these considerations being an issue and I am in-fact at the point of being comfortable about my wife being with men, and just having trouble admitting it to myself?
  • This will be the first time since we’ve been together that my wife has been with another guy she actually loves. Whatever that particular status was, or may have represented will go away once she’s been with him. Part of me wonders about that, possibly curious if I’m having trouble celebrating something that I’m more inclined to mourn. (Mostly on account of the guy before me was such a putz that it was a point of pride for many many years that I was the BBD at the end of that fiasco) Or is this, to borrow from a line from Firefly regarding virginity...it is simply a state of being, in which case the transition from one state to the other is simply a natural progression without any real consequence that need be considered.

All the above things have two facets that mostly balance each other out. I’m not finding the compersion I should in this situation, so I am trying to dig at these various roots to try and get at the core of why I’m not happier about it. What I’ve been finding is that I don’t really think any of these is actually *bothering* me.

So here I am, on the eve of my wife possibly consummating her new relationship, and not feeling particularly thrilled about it, but also I’m not upset or fearful. Right now, my best guess is that the compersion-blocker is due to the uncertainty about the bf and the factor that could make everything go sideways and my wife getting hurt. She’s a big girl, and is aware and accepting of this risk, but as my own very protective nature goes, it doesn’t slow me down one iota about keeping vigil on her behalf.

I feel...neutral. Which I suppose is better than some of the alternatives. Hopefully soon the near term unknowns that are casting shadows on the situation will shake out, and for better or worse, we’ll get some clarity.




And then maybe...just maybe, once I feel better about everything, I can get back to sorting myself out, and finding a way to get fewer not-pretty-enough speeches. Two in a week, you know what we say about what the common factor is when we get the same results in relationships with different people...it’d be me.







Tune in next time when you’ll hear someone say, “You wouldn’t believe how big it was!!”
 
U

You aren't THAT ugly.

(i am prettier than you though. You probably agree.)
 
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Ouch. You have a gift, my friend, of talking about your shit that turns it into poly gold for people who need to learn a few things. I especially like that you expressed your feelings about being sidelined by a drama llama. Sooo been there. Remember your feelings are just as valid.

You and your wife are awesome, and I'm pretty sure you'll keep on being that way. Hugs to you both and hope to see you again soon. We miss you guys! :)
 
Broken, ...

I don’t know what’s wrong. There seems to be something broken, and I’m starting to expect it’s me...but I don’t know what the problem is, I’m just cringing at the constant sound of grinding gears. The following is probably going to be a confused stream of consciousness, incoherent and nonsensical...but such is my state right now.



I’m finding myself still trying to come to terms with the nature of my wife’s new relationship. Things with her new bf have settled out a bit in terms of the earlier concerns I had. But I’m still not really feeling better about things, and it’s starting to annoy me that I can’t seem to just “get over it!”


They are spending a lot of time together, and I find family events are being increasingly blended. This probably shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve been getting increasingly sensitive about having my life planned for me, and while there’s been steps made to mitigate that issue, I often don’t feel I have the room to maneuver, the space to sort myself out. With all my wife’s extra-curricular;) activities, she keeps trying to kick me out of the house once in a while since I’m at home with the kids all the time. But it doesn’t help that my inclinations these days is to stay home in my office...which in terms of getting out of the house and time away from the kids, and mess, and other house stuff, is counterproductive.


I’m trying not to be too conscious of the time she spends with her bf, and I tease her a fair amount in an attempt to make the situation light. It’s a kind of litmus test for me that I’m still cool with things. I don’t know if it’s working. I’m really trying not to run comparisons, or keep score, or dwell on the issues I have with my own relationships, or lack there-of. I’m really really hoping that most of my issues around this are a matter of classical conditioning, and societal scripts that keep kicking me in the head. Previously when she was with a gf, my own internal dialog was anywhere between content and excited. Now...I’m not getting that. And I have to keep reminding myself that my wife is not a fire hydrant, and I’m not a dog needing to mark my territory. (Not the least of which is that isn’t on either of our particular list of fetishes, so I’d probably get bludgeoned for it)


It’s also possible that I’ve been reading too many of the tragic cases in poly! The marriage that turns into a sexless and perhaps loveless trudging through time, after a partner discovers a BBD partner and loses interest in the spouse. (In reference to the last post, in case it was missed, BBD = Bigger, Better Deal) Or our favourite late night paid programming advertisement Poly’s Go Wild! Where suddenly having the freedom to receive favourable attention, they start seeking it out to the extreme, leaving the original partners in the dust going WTF? (My wife used to restrain herself...and still does...I do recognize that this isn’t a rational line of thought, but also how often do we end up having to shrug at unexpected behavior and admit “People change?”)

And of course when I dare speak about this concern to my wife, she managed to reverse the whole thing to be my own fault, because if I had half a chance to be the kid in the candy store...we both know I have an incorrigible sweet tooth.


Either way, I still get the feeling that I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
 
..., and adrift

But all this is just standard insecurity crap isn’t it? What’s the broken part? I’ve been starting to get the sense over the last while that I’m just not relating to people properly anymore. I’m inclined to think it has something to do with work, mostly because I have no issues dealing with people there. I have some co-workers that are good friends, and I rarely get the sense when talking to people there that they don’t understand me. But it is a culture distinct and separate from the rest. So I not only have trouble getting people to understand me, but often I struggle to interact at all. Many of the social niceties or norms, I wonder sometimes if I’ve just forgotten. So often I go quiet in the middle (and sometimes beginning and end as well) just because I don’t know what I’m supposed to say or talk about. Could this be a factor in the less than stellar results I’ve seen when trying to make new friends?



It follows into the rejections I seem to continue to experience. The friends I mentioned before may not have wanted to date me, but at least they still wanted to be friends. Yet then there’s the rejection suffered at the hands of a friend that I still don’t understand. A friend of almost 2 years recently decided to excise me from her life entirely, without so much as a BTW. Sparing you the boring details, I thought I was doing everything that a good friend was supposed to do, supporting them through rough times, and visiting occasionally to stay in touch. Suddenly I was apparently doing things wrong...which was entertaining since the sudden complaint was for something that they had TOLD ME to do the last time we had met. It was sudden and bewildering for me...but of course my wife saw it coming, and had a good “Told you so” moment. Despite the warning, given that I might actually be screwed up enough to consider leaning on friends for a change, instead of always propping them up, the timing of this incident stung a bit.

Being sort of but not really on the heels of another friend of over 20 years who decided our friendship wasn’t worth the paper we clean our bottoms with; this kind of thing starts to make me wonder what I’m doing wrong? I get not being pretty enough to date, but not pretty enough to even be friends with, doesn’t make sense to me.

And mostly I think these things just make me really really angry. It feels like a betrayal. And regardless of the whole friend-zone meme debate going on around FB these days, that’s another discussion, but not what this is about. I’m used to unrequited love. It’s pretty standard for me to have feelings that run in one direction, and need to be quashed at some point or another. That’s fine. But I’m sick and tired of being the proper dutiful supportive friend who puts blood sweat & tears into a friendship, just to have them bail. Any my remaining friends wonder why I’m so reluctant to lean on anything that isn’t nailed to the wall!


There’s probably a reason that IRL my attraction centre is all messed up, where I get drawn to women who don’t date men..., since if there’s no possibility or expectation that they’d accept me as a date, there’s no disappointment when nothing happens.



Between friend abandonment issues, and non-dating woes, this seems to be leading down the path of what’s the fucking point. The apathy seems to be kicking in, where I wonder why have an OKC profile when so many letters are met with silence, and with the thread on the forum about the shit messages other guys send, or the winners who have contaminated my wife’s message box with their useless drivel, lies, and other crap, it’s no bloody wonder.



Part of me wants to rattle the bars of the invisible cage and rage against the night. I want to fight back and find the solutions to fix whatever’s wrong...but then I find out that basically, ...
I have nothing to complain about...
When I’ve tried using others as a sounding board for any of this tripe, I’ve been basically getting a similar message coming back to me. STFU. Usually it’s accompanied by a roshambo because in the moment of trying to sort out my shit, I’ve failed to take into account someone else’s feelings on the subject.


So apparently it’s time to learn that sometimes the best way to communicate, communicate, communicate is to Shut the Fuck Up!


I can’t say that time with meta’s makes me feel like a cattle getting pushed through the chutes to the slaughterhouse. That would make them feel bad, or as if I didn’t want to spent time with them at all. They’re genuinely good people, and are not responsible that I’m all fucked up. And time with them makes my wife happy...so STFU.

I can’t tell my wife to date women. It’s entirely self-serving, and she’d feel pressured. I can’t use reverse psychology and tell her to not date women, since she’d just see through it anyways. STFU.

I can’t talk about my irrational fears of her having a kid in the candy store phase; since it’s obviously it’s just because that’s what I would do. STFU. More importantly, perhaps these discussions just become the catalyst by which people get fed up being around me? So if I keep talking about my insecure crap, the more likely it is that she’d just decide I was becoming more effort than I was worth.
So again...STFU.

I can’t tell my remaining friends that I feel rejected or pissed off because a couple friends bailed on me. After all, THEY didn’t abandon or reject me. STFU.

I can’t tell my (lady) friends how frustrating it is to have so many messages online met by silence, because they’ve had many months of messages and dates with numerous guys, but not the sufficient quality for what they want. STFU.

Can’t comment on not getting out of the house, because most of the time when I do have the chance, I stay at home anyways. STFU.

Can’t even justify searching for a gf, since it’s not like my marriage is actually missing anything. Having a gf just to have an excuse to leave the house (see above), wouldn’t be fair to her. Admitting that I still want a gf, I’m afraid of triggering my wife’s insecurities. If I did have one, that might cause scheduling issues for her and her bf, and after the rest of this blog, what appearance would that have? The whole thing is just a giant bottomless free-refills cup of STFU!

There’s probably plenty more I could add, but it’s time for me to STFU some more.



So instead of talking about any of my crap, I just need to STFU. I need to HOLD FAST, white knuckled at the coming events, and take shelter in old familiar patterns and try taking my mind off things.



As usual though, it is still not working. It still builds the frustration. I’m not happy with several things about myself lately, and I’m angry at a lot of things, and it’s not entirely focused on a discernible cause. And of course my wife is seeing it...and keeps asking. But I need to STFU.


So many things I can’t tell her, can’t say, lest it be taken the wrong way. Things I can’t say because I don’t want to be THAT guy! And because I don’t want to make it into a self-fulfilling prophecy where I say whatever is needed for her to reject me in a way that would make my worst fears come true.



All I CAN do, is hold her tight, and tell her that I love her...
 
Sympathy’s and condolences

And then to put everything in perspective, we heard some very sad news last night, about the passing of a dear friend in a nearby poly community.

Someone lively, friendly, and full of awesome, who we had the great pleasure of knowing, though all too briefly, and not nearly as well as we would have liked.

And in a single instant, all the previous seems ludicrous, and really there’s nothing that needs attention right now.


Because right now, all my thoughts, hugs, and support, woefully distant as it may be, is with her friends, and her family.
 
So middle of a road trip on my phone rating a McDonalds breakfast and wanted to send out some support. I saw your post last night and really wanted to get to a PC to send some support.

Current on my phone and posting of forums kinda blows haha..

First.. If you ever need a break.. You have some old and new friends in the van area willing to talk shop and game if you need that. ( game as in gups or something)

Its hard to think in poly when poly seems so constricted to.. Umm.. Well normal people. I am just a dude who like(d) kegs of beer football and swould likely be labelled a jock by most. I struggle in poly because I find I don't have enough in common. In general.. To bother being romantically involved.. But it does happen. (Romance and sex separated of course.. Finding sexual partners is not the same as finding relationships)

I wonder if you suffer from roles. Do you friend girls without putting yourself truley out there? ( I am gonna throw my phone through a window)... Outside poly this would be called game. I realize on paper it sounds bad but girls get the friend zone thing from how guys act towards them.

Now that can get you in a sticky situation. Some people once they realize friendship isn't the only end goal they shut down.. Kind of a lame and immature response ... But you can still foster great friendships after successfully getting your flirt on. But how will they ever know if you don't out yourself out there.

OK really I have a lot more I could say. If the others were on here I know they would too.. Hope the post makes some sense. Really hard to build a cohesive thought on a 4 inch screen.
 
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